


A Generation of One

by Luke_Danger



Category: Shantae (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:20:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23811472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luke_Danger/pseuds/Luke_Danger
Summary: There was a reason that Harmony was so certain about the fact that there would be no more half-genies once the current generation passed: she had seen what would follow them.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	A Generation of One

**Author's Note:**

> Spoiler Warning: Minor spoilers for Seven Sirens as this is set post-game.

It had been a long time since Shantae had regularly performed. Much as she missed it, being Scuttle Town’s Guardian (half-)Genie took precedence. She was still welcome in the town’s dance parlor, but after a long day fighting pirates, monsters, evil (or chaotically stupid) adventurers, and worse Scuttlebutt’s political dirty water? 

After all that, dancing for relaxing patrons was just too much. She spent time with the dancers during slow days, but when it came to her own leisure time it was better to spend it in the bath house soothing her injuries. Or getting alone time at home to just let herself go, often with cookie dough ice cream and comic books… well before bed, of course.

Unfortunately, there was one aspect of performing that she did not miss at all. An aspect that had an unwelcome return in Armor Town as the performance that day ended with what should have been the more mundane portion of Shantae’s own powers. Of course, given how dancing for her was a merging of mundane and magic, the conspiracy minded could easily think otherwise...

“And you are _sure_ that you can only transform yourself, not others?”

Shantae exhaled as she looked towards the ocean, feeling the breeze as it cut into the high situated balcony in Tree Town. “I told you, Zapple: it only works on myself. Ask Bolo, I’ve tried.”

The most armored of the five half-genies (little as that meant in practical terms) simply shrugged her shoulders as she was still leaning on the wall. “Could have fooled me. Ammonian soldiers usually aren’t that rowdy on shore leave. Those guys acted like monkeys.”

“They were throwing gems at her!” protested the other of the two half-genies local to Siren Island, the leaves in her hair crumpled from the commotion. “That is just disrespectful to the dancer-”

“Tree Town does things differently, Vera,” pointed out the shyest of the five. Plink had been sitting on a folding chair, and had removed the two eye-shaped clips that kept her hair pushed up to let it fall over her shoulders more naturally. “And Scuttle Town has its own traditions.”

“Shared with the rest of Sequin Land,” Shantae confirmed as she exhaled, looking down from the railing to the road below. “But back in Scuttle Town, anyone cat-calling the dancers gets thrown out. And anyone trying to get on the stage…”

“... gets thrown into the harbor, I saw.”

Shantae winced as the fifth of the group had spoken up. Harmony seemed to live up to her name all too well with how she never raised her voice, and the oldest of them all was no different despite that mess.

“Sorry, I have a short…”

“No need to apologize, they started it.”

“Still,” Shantae added before she shrugged and let it sit in the air. The whole point of Arena Town’s festival had been to show people that half-genies were not dangerous mysterious outsiders. Okay, that was the public reason. The real reason was Risky Boots and her latest scheme, but they were co-opting the evil plan for something better! The crew of an Ammonian ship forced to an emergency pit stop by battle damage should have been nothing against such a noble goal!

“... so it’ll probably blow over soon enough anyways. They’re used to me shocking troublemakers.”

“Hear that?”

“Huh?” Shantae almost jumped as she turned towards Harmony.

“It’s fine - nothing unusual for them,” Harmony explained as she folded her arms and smiled. “If anything, they will be laughing about this once the bruises heal.”

Shantae shrugged, allowing herself to smile as small talk followed for a short while. A short while as ultimately, most of them wanted to take some time to get ready for the evening’s performance at Tree Town. Plink and Vera headed down to the latter’s room to clean up, while Zapple needed to get some dinner.

That left Shantae and Harmony at the balcony, and the latter still had more to say as she put a hand on the former’s shoulder.

“I’m fine,” Shantae insisted as she realized she had wandered back to the balcony to stare out at the ocean again. “I’m just tired, that’s all.”

“Considering you are the only one of us who performs regularly, you seem to be taking this poorly. You never had a rowdy crowd?”

“Once or twice,” she admitted, “usually because some adventurers staying for the night didn’t catch on that it’s not _that_ kind of dance parlor.”

Harmony chuckled, shaking her head. “Same nonsense, different continent. If only they knew the history before them, how fleeting it is…”

Frowning, a question that had been kicking around the back of her head finally came to the fore. “So, why are you so certain that we’re the only half genies?”

Shantae winced the moment the words were out of her mouth - and it was not like she could blame it on a health potion’s side effects. Fortunately, however, the older half-genie took the question in stride, giving a sad smile.

“Come on, let me show you.”

“I- follow you? To your room?”

“Oh come on, it’s not like it’s Bolo’s room.”

“Heheh, well… we’re just friends. More like a brother I never had.”

The older of the two raised an eyebrow, but shrugged and started on the short climb up to her room. Harmony had been situated in Tree Town’s upper houses. The chief figured that it was probably safest for a half-genie with quake magic to be far from the ground, so that at worst she shook apart her own room rather than the beams holding the rest up.

* * *

As soon as they entered her room, the red-headed half-genie went right to her trunk, opening it and rifling through before pulling out a locket. Harmony paused, and Shantae felt herself wishing she had not opened up her mouth as she saw the sad look the other woman gave the locket. Was it a gift from her mother, another reminder to Harmony what she had lost? A part of Shantae wanted to say that at least Harmony’s mother gave her something, but who knew what else was in that book of hers?

Finally, Harmony gestured for Shantae to come over, opening the locket. “When we met, you said I looked too young to be the oldest anything.”

“Oh, heh, well…” Shantae rubbed the back of her neck. “I thought half-genies had been around for longer. Back in Scuttle Town, I heard about the daughters of genies pooling their powers together to bring back peace.”

A chuckle from Harmony somehow reassured Shantae, maybe because the other woman smiled. “Word spread faster than I thought. I told Dickens it wasn’t anything like the King’s Chivalric Table...”

“Dickens?”

“Friend of mine, sort of like you and Rottytops…” the other half-genie was about to go on, but one look at her locket and she moved on. “Forget it, the little lizard’s song-writing isn’t important. You wanted an answer.”

Shantae just nodded, stepping closer. “Was that from your mother?”

“No, though I would show it to her if I could…” Harmony inhaled, then just walked towards Shantae and planted it in her hand. “Open it, and tell me what you see.”

Despite knowing that she meant no harm, Shantae could not help but worry as she took the locket, looked at the picture inside and-

“Ohhhhhh! She’s adorable!”

“She is.”

Shantae could only continue a happy and drawn out squeal as she stared at the picture - probably taken by a relic hunter’s phototaker. She took in the first strands of dark red hair just like Harmony’s, a cute button nose and toothless smile, ears rounded, dressed in a simple blue shirt… she could go on about how adorable this little kid was. Instead, she just had more questions.

“Who is she? Niece? Half-sister? Adoptee?” Shantae frowned - maybe Harmony just had a weird puberty with the ears? “You as a baby?”

“Daughter.”

Freezing, Shantae could only look at the picture, then up to Harmony. To the adorable picture, to the imposing figure before her. To the human baby in photo, to the half-genie woman before her. To the rounded ears that were so typical of humans, to the other example of a half-genie’s tell-tale pointed ears before her.

“Huh?” was all that Shantae could finally say as her mind simply broke.

“My little Melody… _my_ daughter. My mother’s granddaughter. A granddaughter of the genies, right?”

“Yeah, of course! She just looks more human.”

“She _is_ human: every drop of her blood is human.”

“But, shouldn’t she be quarter-genie? I mean, assuming the lucky guy is just human.”

“You would think that,” Harmony held out a hand, and Shantae passed the locket back. “But my king’s court mage tried seer rites, I brought her to a hall of magic to try and find the same signs that I showed, or awaken something. Surely, she carried that trace of magic, right?”

Shantae’s head simply bobbed up and down slowly. It fit, right? Kids took after their parents: Shantae had her genie mother’s powers, and something from her father that gave her hair that could be used as a weapon.

“She did, but it wasn’t genie magic. Not as you or I have it. Who knows what she’ll be when she grows up? But whatever she is, it will be as a human. A guardian, maybe. But it will be a human one, not as a quarter-genie.”

“I… but…”

Harmony closed the locket, and her eyes followed suit. “Much as I hoped otherwise, it just told me what I feared. That we - that I - was different. Unique. We are not just more inhabitants of this world - not like those cyclopeans making up the Ammo Baron’s army or the monsters we fight. We are one of a kind: a brief aftershock of the genies leaving our world.”

What could she say in response to this? That Melody might just be a late bloomer? Some bit about how they were never alone thanks to their friends, or knowing each other as they now did?

“Human, quarter-genie, I will always love her.” Harmony was finally regaining her composure, taking a deep breath and holding the locket tightly in a fist. “But I will never be able to look at her and not think, ‘this is the end of my kind’. She is innocent - if anything, she may try to step in for _us_ when we start to die.”

“Or get killed,” Shantae noted as her own close shaves crawled up her spine like a spider.

“We are a generation of one: the only half-genies this world will see unless the genies can return. And that almost became impossible.”

“Because of the Dynamo, Risky’s scheme...”

“Another aftershock, just like her crew. The Pirate Master’s answer to us half-breed abominations.”

“We are not abominations!”

“We may as well be!” Harmony snapped suddenly, hurling the locket back into the trunk. “Genies are not native to this plane of existence, and they came to fight other evils. Evils that they left this world to go and fight.”

“So do we! Isn’t that why we stepped up? We have to make the biggest impact we can on the world, since we are the only half-genies this world has!”

A rueful smile crossed the other woman’s face as she shook her head. “I know. And you have done more than any of us could on that.”

Shantae blushed at the high praise - it was so weird to hear it from someone who could be considered her peer. Her friends and uncle were all supportive so she was used to them congratulating her. Scuttle Town’s praise had its glow, but she also knew many of them and it was praise for what separated her from them. Oddly, some of the best praise had been from Risky Boots: who would have guessed that the pirate that could go toe-to-toe with her was one of the few whose praise felt the most significant?

Such thoughts were interrupted as Harmony exhaled sharply before she continued. “I’m sorry - I didn’t mean to snap at you. My mother gave me that scrapbook for a good reason, but it is a burden. I grew up re-reading all those hopes and dreams, knowing that our mothers trusted me to share it with their daughters.”

“A lot of expectations as you grew up, rather than just being you?”

“I hoped that sharing with more might ease the burden, but this whole thing was a ruse anyways.”

“What are you going to do once you head home?”

Harmony paused, and Shantae wished she had kept her mouth shut again. This was already turning into an all-nighter, and even then Harmony had something more to worry about. A _daughter_. 

Sure, she knew it was natural and that one day she might have her own family, but it still felt so alien to her. This was hardly the lifestyle for it, after all: there was a reason besides her father causing ‘accidents’ that Sky never settled down like she kept saying she wanted to. How was she supposed to search for new warbird eggs lugging around her own?

“Sorry,” Shantae apologized again as the silence became deafening, “it’s late.”

“No, it’s a good question. I came for a reason, but maybe I need to ask what _I_ want.” Harmony knelt at her suitcase again, digging through again until she found her mother’s scrapbook. “I know what our mothers wanted for us - and I know what I want for my Melody, but is it what I want?”

“Uh….”

“You don’t have to answer that, Shantae.” Harmony turned her head and tried to give a reassuring smile. “Go on, we still have tonight’s performance and you need to clean up.”

There was more to say, but unable to figure out how to broach it without shoving her curled shoes into her mouth again, Shantae took the offered out. “I’ll see you later then, Harmony.”

“Same. And stop fretting about Armor Town: those jugheads tried to grab you.”


End file.
